Our trip up north was amazing! Our arrival was less than perfectly executed.

(This post ended up being extremely rambley and therapeutic.  It'll be a few parts.  Sorry, I'm not sorry.)

Well, we made it.  We are in our new home, a two story condo, and we pretty much love it.  It's a lot nicer than we expected.  Our road trip with a toddler?  Amazing.  It was so much fun.  If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen some of what I am talking about.  Southern California's coast is amazing, it would have been hard not to enjoy it.

However, our arrival here was less than spectacular.  We expected to be in a motel for a few nights when we first arrived, we were told our stuff would take 4-5 days to arrive.  That was kind of a bummer but totally acceptable.  What happened wasn't.  Our things took 8 days to arrive.  Those extra 3 days with out clean clothes and toddler stuff (if you have a kid you know what I mean).  Never mind the extra expense of staying in a hotel for more nights than anticipated, it was honestly infuriating.  We were so disappointed with the level of service, it was a real pain in the neck.

Of course now that that is mostly over and behind us, it doesn't sound quite as painful as it felt in the moment.  It was a mistake to assume that the worst part of our trip would be altering Declan's sleep schedule, or driving in the car with him while he was awake.. or really to assume that the worst part of the trip would have anything to do with him.  He was mostly amazing.

Our Big Adventure Begins

Anyway, so here is how it went down.  So I can remember it.

The moving truck arrived about 3 hours late on the big day.  No big deal. We were still scrambling around stuffing random leftover objects into boxes.  My husband took down the crib early in the day, thinking the movers could complete Declan's room really quickly.  Mistake #1.  Poor kiddo had to hang around his home while all his familiar objects (high chair/crib, etc) were put into a huge truck.  (We had talked about how this would all go down 1000x so he was not surprised or upset, just... tired.) 

The movers didn't end up leaving until around 5 in the evening.  Declan's only ever had 1-2 other days without napping and they've never been pretty.  He conked out the second his head hit the car seat.  He was great when we drove by my BIL's to drop off our second vehicle (that a truck transport brought to us), he slept the whole time.  After a little visiting and some more goodbye hugs we were off.  Our big adventure had begun.

We got to Camp Pendleton (the only place on the 5 that there are NO exits) and toddlerboy woke up and full on melted down.  He just lost it.  Could not control himself, screaming/crying lost it.  I imagine he was thinking "I WAS AWAKE ALL DAY, WHY AM I NOT IN A CRIB???? I HATE MY LIFE." etc etc.

It worked out though.  In my ever growing lack of comfort with solid plans (seriously, strict schedule/plans give me major anxiety, yes, it drives my husband crazy) I had the foresight to not book a hotel.  However, because I'm a researcher by nature (and by trade) I had googled about 100 different hotel options during our 10 hour drive at any given/point/town/etc.

And boy oh boy was this Southern California loving girl happy that we got to spend one last night in Orange County.  My husband and I fell in love (realized we were in love) in Orange County and I know it's overplayed and over talked about but it really is beautiful and amazing.  I was thrilled to pull into a hotel right near South Coast Plaza and make the most of it.

Once we were inside Declan went right back to sleep and he was happy about it.  The real adventure wouldn't really start until the next day.

Cont..